National Highway 1!
Our next major destination in India was to be Ladakh, which is known also as Little Tibet and sits high up in the Himalayan mountains bordering Pakistan, China and Tibet. But first we had to get there, which by all accounts was an epic journey, and a bus ride I was dreading after our recent experience in Laos! It was a total of 483 kilometres in distance with four passes over around 4000 metres and was due to take us around 22-25 hours. The first step was an overnight journey from McLeod Ganj to Manali, and thankfully that went smoothly. We arrived around 5am and soon found a lovely little guesthouse to catch up on some much needed sleep. We spent the rest of the day in Manali organising our onward trip to Leh, visiting some local Hindu and Buddhist temples, relaxing, walking and eating pizza cooked by a Veronese chef overlooking the Manali valleys.
The next morning I felt almost ready to face the long journey to Leh. We had opted to take the government bus, which was supposed to take two days with an overnight stop in a place called Keylong, which sits at 3200m altitude, to help acclimatise to the 3500m altitude at Leh. All of the private jeep options seemed to either stop at Sarchu, which sits at an altitude of 4200m or drive straight through. Having suffered horrible altitude sickness in a previous trip to South America Andy was not keen on either of these options. The bus was leaving at a very civilised 11am and we arrived about half an hour before hand to be ‘checked in’ by the very helpful and friendly staff who also advised us that it might be a good idea to get some snacks ‘just in case there are landslides and we get delayed’. This did not fill us with confidence! Having already stocked up on yak cheese sandwiches earlier that morning we boarded the bus, which was quite comfortable by Indian standards, and lucky for us half empty so we could spread out if we wanted to. We immediately met a fellow traveller; a lovely lady from Melbourne called Megan. She is a television production manager and we hit it off straight away. She was sitting next to a nice Indian man who now lived in the states and wrote small-scale plays. The first few hours went quite smoothly as we wound up the green, lush mountainside path past waterfalls and being passed by countless motorcycles. We had one small hiccup, as the bus driver passed a little too closely to a rock that was jutting out from the mountainside and we lost the glass in the upper window pane, but other that we arrived at our lunch stop on schedule. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we enjoyed an Indian thali sitting on the terrace of a little teahouse admiring the views down the valley and of Indian tourists paragliding on the thermal airwaves overhead or riding on horses in the valley below. This bus ride might be okay after all I thought! We continued on after lunch for about an hour before we hit our first major hurdle. A massive traffic jam of trucks on contract carrying petrol for the Indian Army – who have countless major outposts on the way to Leh and further into the mountains – as well as tourist buses, jeeps and motorcyclists. Rumour had it that there had been landslides in the area approaching our first pass the Kardung La as well as the fact that the road was being widened to a two lane road which was causing further delays. We hit the jam around 2pm and were finally on our way a good 5 hours later, about the time we were supposed to be reaching our destination for the night. Hmmmm! During the delay though we had increased our circle of friends on the bus and met an Indian named Saked who is a journalist for the Financial Times on a career break looking for something more morally satisfying to do with his time. We drove on and on and finally reached our tented accommodation just before midnight. We were served dinner, shown to our beds and told to be ready to leave again at 4am as our driver wanted to get an early start to make up for lost time.
Blearing eyed after our short sleep we boarded the bus again, breakfast packs in hand, eager to get going so we would reach our destination as soon as possible. The first few hours of our trip went perfectly and we made great progress until our next hurdle, first a bumping noise from the bus followed soon after by a hissing noise. The driver stopped and went to investigate. Not only did we have a flat tire but the hissing noise was coming from a problem hose. We managed to limp on to a little ‘town’ – a collection of about 5 ‘parachute’ cafes. These seasonal teahouses pop up on the side of roads during the tourist season and are made from old parachutes that have been used by the army for cargo drops. It was still very early in the morning, and very cold so we all huddled under blankets in one of the teahouses and ordered chai and aloo paratha to while away the time. A New Zealander named Ben had boarded the bus at a passport checking post a while back after completing a trek so we got chatting to him and also increased our little bus family meeting a travelling Indian couple, a Mexican girl called Anna and a Spanish girl called Iratxe who both lived in Mumbai and an Argentinian man. After what must have been a few hours the bus was in a fit state for us to continue on, but the driver told us that there was some delays up ahead so we would wait a while longer until the road cleared. Once we got going again we made really good progress for another hour and thought by now that luck must be with us. We were on our way! Alas, we crossed a high pass and came around a corner and saw a huge line of trucks, tourist buses, jeeps and motorcycles in front of us. Our driver inched forward in the queue until we discovered that the bridge we needed to cross was blocked by an overloaded truck which had tipped on its side and was now blocking the path. There seemed to be a lot of activity happening, but nothing was happening too quickly so we got out of the bus and sat on the sunny hillside watching the dramas. There were trucks and four-wheel drives attempting to take an alternative route through a stream, which worked sometimes and other times ended in near disaster with one poor Land Cruiser owner having a very bad day! There were army staff everywhere as well as a few earth movers but all attempts to clear the bridge seemed to end up in vein. The day went on and on and we made friends with a few more people on our bus. There was a young French girl and a French family of four and to pass the time we sat in the sunshine playing cards for a while. We were stuck at a height of around 5000 metres and as the time spent at that altitude went on some people began to feel more and more ill. The headaches could also have been a symptom of the lack of water we were drinking as we were rapidly running out but poor Megan was curled up in a ball and vomiting at one stage until she was given some Diamox, a tablet to treat altitude sickness by Ben. As the day wore on and the attempts to get us moving failed we had all run out of water and food and Andy and Saked spoke to someone from the Indian Army who agreed to drive them back to the parachute tents to stock up on supplies which was very nice of them. Just before they returned with their stash of water and aloo paratha there was word that the truck had been unloaded of its cargo and would soon be moved off the bridge so we could continue forwards. We could hardly believe it! By this time it was far too late to get Leh and we didn’t fancy continuing on given that the bus driver had only had a few hours sleep in the past 48 hours. We instead drove on to Sarchu where we managed to find enough tents for us all to sleep for a few more hours before we continued on yet again in the hope of getting to Leh. We were very lucky to have Saked on the bus to liaise and interpret between us passengers, the bus driver, conductor and the Indian Army. Megan and two other girls who weren’t feeling well were taken by the Army to their medical tent to receive some oxygen and other treatment for the effects of altitude sickness. When they returned later that night they told us that there were hundreds of soliders who had just come up from the plains who were also receiving treatment. We found out the next morning that two Indian truck drivers had died overnight from being stuck at such a high altitude and not knowing that they should seek treatment or retreat to a lower altitude.
After a few more hours sleep we left at 5am the next morning, hoping today would be our lucky day. We drove and drove, ever expecting another disaster but seeming to be a bit more fortunate this day. The scenery was spectacular with the roads winding up steep hillsides on fairly narrow paths. Sometimes it didn’t pay to look just how close to the side of the cliff you were travelling. We reached the high point of our trip, and reputed to be the second highest motorable pass in the world, the Taglang La at 5359 metres in the early afternoon and all got off the bus to take pictures. I think we were in some disbelief that we had actually made it this far! Not long after we were again delayed by some roadworks and dread began to creep around the bus, but were were only stopped for a short while and were on our way again thank goodness. As the afternoon wore on and we came closer to Leh the scenery changed with more and more greenery and rivers appearing until finally a few hours short of the town we also began to see the stunning monasteries perched on top of the stark cliffs. It was a beautiful and very welcome sight! We finally arrived in Leh in the late afternoon, 24 hours after our expected arrival. It certainly was an epic adventure! We all went our separate ways, eager to find a room for some much needed sleep and a wash. Such was the bond we’d built up over the bus trip though we arranged to meet the next night for a reunion and to celebrate our arrival! Unfortunately the adventure was not quite over for us yet and poor Andy spent nearly 2 hours wandering the town trying to find us a room whilst I minded the backpacks. When we eventually found one it was a lot more basic than we hoped but it had a hot shower and a bed and we were glad just to be able to rest for a while.
Over the coming weeks we were to hear a lot of stories about trips from Manali to Leh. It seemed everyone had their own disaster story and the road was then closed for a few weeks after we managed to get through. Also a bus load of Ladakhi musicians on their way to Leh died when their bus fell off the side of the mountain road so we were very glad to have made it safely at all.
A game of cards
First traffic jam
Parachute teahouses
The offending truck blocking the bridge
Long and winding road
Our second traffic jam
Waterfalls lined the road
Taglangla Pass
View from the pass
Tags: Bus trip, Kelong, Ladakh, leh, Manali, Rotang La, Sarchu, Taglang La
